My Dublin Life

I'm blown away. Not only was the house of the famous rock star AMAZING but yet homey and a bit cluttered in a really REAL sort of way, but they were really cool and friendly and absolutely LOVED Mom's bottled moose and insisted on ringing her in person to give direct thanks. How nice is that? Mom was NOT cool about it (I could hear her squeeking in excitement from the other side of the room). But it was lovely and nice and a fantastic evening.

I wish I didn't care that they were so freakin famous but that wouldn't be true. A part of me is thinking that I just met some nice relatives of Saoirse's last night but a part is all "Oh My GOD I can't believe I'm really having dinner with ***!!!!"

Saoirse said relax, there are lots of musicians in Dublin and it's really uncool to get all excited every time you meet one. I think I managed to look reasonably chilled last night. But guess what? I took a picture of the toilet on my mobile!!!

In other news I am pleased to report that my studies are going really well. I think I've probably already done about half the reading for my thesis and that's before term even begins. But I am really looking forward to the start of classes as I could do with some more supervision and even a few new friends. I've kind of lost touch with those college girls because I've been hanging with Saoirse and Bepe a lot. I could do with shaking up. I need to see some new venues!

So, my eleven mysterious followers who never write comments, any suggestions for the weekend? Any? I have very little money but I want to go OUT!

Well, I've kind of come to terms with the whole Italian invasion thing. What the hey. It's just a week.

The weather is really sucky but I have decided to come to terms with that, too, because, really, what's the point?

The good news is, however, that August is actually a fabulous month to be in Dublin. I totally can't wait for the Festival of World Cultures which will be on in Dun Laoighire at the end of the month. Also, following the great success of my hiking trip I'm planning to embrace the great outdoors again, or at least take a couple of daytrips to Meath. Can't believe I haven't seen Newgrange yet. Saoirse has just passed her driving test so we will go together.

Oooh ooh oh! And of course. What we have all been waiting for for weeks. Tonight is THE night. Tonight is the night that I am going to dinner at the house of Saoirse's first-cousin-once-removed, the FAMOUS IRISH ROCK STAR. I am so excited. So excited that I can't decided what to wear so that I look totally cool but also like I didn't think at all about what to wear. I'm thinking jeans but then a very fancy top. Or vice verse. Damn. So hard. And then I will be blowing my cool by presenting my lovely gift of Mom's Bottled Moose and her note proclaiming herself Number One Fan. Is that spooky.

I so wish I could say who it was but I guess that's inappropriate, right? Right?

Wel, more soon. I've got to go investigate the wardrobe.

So I had The Awkward Conversation with Bepe last night and boy do I feel bad.

"I've got to talk to you about your family staying," I said.

"Oh yes?" he said.

"There's just too many of them to fit here. I'm sorry. It's not fair on me."

He looked all hurt and then told me the following:

His parents' small bakery business has been doing really badly lately. They live in a smallish town and now there's a big new supermarket. The supermarket is cheaper and the recession is bad in Italy too so the family's income has been dwindling and so they had decided not to come to Ireland but he said that he would come. He bought them tickets with Ryanair. Now I know that Bepe's not on a huge income. Just minimum wage plus tips. He says that he just can't afford to pay another red cent. He said that he's sorry that he didn't talk with me. He said that he sees that this was wrong. But his parents dream of seeing where he works.

To top it all off, this will be their first trip overseas and their first trip in a plane so it's supposed to be the experience of a life time.

I am a shit. I feel awful. I basically fell in a grovelling heap and apologised. Dublin Tourism Marketing people, if you are reading this, I could really do with some tickets to entertain a family of two middle aged and two teenaged Italians from a small town somewhere south of Rome. They are arriving on August 2nd and I have no resolved to do all I can to make their trip a fantastic one.

Wow!



I got back from a week of camping and hiking last night. I'm tired. I'm scratched. I'm three kilos lighter (yippee!) and most of all I am really glad I went. The weather was.... well, it was. It rained quite a bit. But it wasn't cold. Although I had been planning to spend the week in Lofty Solitude between books and hiking I kind of ended up hanging out with a gang of crazy Australians and had the best time. I liked the camping site which managed to make me feel that I was really in the wilds while also offering showers and stuff so it didn't all get too smelly.



As I had gone down with out a car, of course, not having either an international license or the funds to either buy or rent a car, it was just as well I met some people to hang with. The Ozzies ("Randy", "Chaz", and Peter) were fun and equally important had a car. I think we must have done about half the Wicklow Way and visted about half of the pubs in Wicklow, too!



One of the great things about hiking is that afterwards you can eat as much as you want. Continuing my love affair with Lidl, me and the Ozzie actually bought a cheap, but real "Barbie" and barbecued basically everything we could find. That's to say, I did it. They might have been Australians, but they were godawful cooks. So I did the cooking, which was fine, as they drove me everywhere.



I doubt I'll ever see Randy or Chaz or Peter again, although we're friends on Facebook. But it doesn't really matter. I'm so happy I spent a week in Wicklow, which is totally f*****g gorgeous!



I've hardly seen Bepe since I came back and I'm not looking forward to having The Conversation about his plan to have his whole freakin' family staying in our teeny apartment. Groan.